The present teachings relate to reformers and methods of reforming of liquid and gaseous reformable fuels to produce hydrogen-rich reformates.
The conversion of a gaseous or liquid reformable fuel to a hydrogen-rich carbon monoxide-containing gas mixture, a product commonly referred to as “synthesis gas” or “syngas,” can be carried out in accordance with any of such well known fuel reforming operations as steam reforming, dry reforming, autothermal reforming, and catalytic partial oxidation (CPOX) reforming. Each of these fuel reforming operations has its distinctive chemistry and requirements and each is marked by its advantages and disadvantages relative to the others.
The development of improved fuel reformers, fuel reformer components, and reforming processes continues to be the focus of considerable research due to the potential of fuel cells, i.e., devices for the electrochemical conversion of electrochemically oxidizable fuels such hydrogen, mixtures of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, and the like, to electricity, to play a greatly expanded role for general applications including main power units (MPUs) and auxiliary power units (APUs). Fuel cells also can be used for specialized applications, for example, as on-board electrical generating devices for electric vehicles, backup power sources for residential-use devices, main power sources for leisure-use, outdoor and other power-consuming devices in out-of-grid locations, and lighter weight, higher power density, ambient temperature-independent replacements for portable battery packs.
Because large scale, economic production of hydrogen, infrastructure required for its distribution, and practical means for its storage (especially as a transportation fuel) are widely believed to be a long way off, much current research and development has been directed to improving both fuel reformers as sources of electrochemically oxidizable fuels, notably mixtures of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, and fuel cell assemblies, commonly referred to as fuel cell “stacks,” as converters of such fuels to electricity, and the integration of fuel reformers and fuel cells into more compact, reliable and efficient devices for the production of electrical energy.
In general, reformers are designed and constructed to process either gaseous or liquid reformable fuel but not both. A reformer that was capable of selectively processing one of these types of fuel and at some point, switching over to the processing of the other type of fuel would have considerable advantages over reformers that are capable of processing only one of these types of fuel. For example, a dual utilization liquid and gas reformer would be able to switch from processing one type of fuel to the other in response to a change in circumstances such as the altered economics of operating the reformer with one or the other fuel or the relative availability of the fuels at a particular time and/or in a particular place.
Accordingly, there exists a need for a reformer capable of utilizing both liquid and gaseous reformable fuels and a method for the selective reforming of such fuels within the same reformer.